Peter Fisk

Switzerland is a land of high peaks and deep valleys, the Swiss are a people of great character and historic ingenuity. Switzerland is one of the world’s top 10 economies by GDP, and home to some of the world’s most innovative companies.

It is also the land of science and imagination. From the UN to CERN, from cheese to chocolate, finance and pharma, Swiss-based organisations continue to shape the world. But its not just all George Clooney rowing across Lake Geneva, or Roger Federer in youthful retirement. Consider Nobel prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her business, Crispr Therapeutics, shaping the future of healthcare, with gene editing and the next generation of healthcare and humanity.

Albert Einstein, of course, loved to walk in the mountains above Bern, seeking to make sense of the physical world. Inspired by the stunning environment, he envisioned how to connect tangible and intangible, starting with qualitative imagination, leading to quantified engineering – or in his case, the relationship between energy and matter, assisted by his mathematician wife in formulating E = mc²

Across the border, Germany looks on enviously. While the Germans have lost their way in a rapidly changing world, its former industrial might now more of a rusting restraint, the Swiss power ahead.

Compare the two nations: Switzerland is 10x smaller than Germany, in geography and population. Swiss life expectancy is 3 years longer, but German are marginally healthier. Swiss GDP is double (per capita), and average income is double too. Cost of living is actually on par, although inflation 3x greater in Germany. And on average the Swiss have 30 minutes more sunshine per day!

However Switzerland is not all about Swiss banks, gigantic Toblerones, and the World Economic Forum. One of the most innovative Swiss companies of recent years is On, the sportswear business founded by Swiss triathlete Olivier Bernhard. The business has ground rapidly across the world, from a niche running brand to a lifestyle fashion icon.

30 years ago, Swatch was one of the first Swiss “game-changers” as I call them. Recognising the increasingly outdated practices of classic Swiss watch making, it reinvented the timepiece for a modern world. Funky, colourful and accessible to everyone. Swatch Group today continues to thrive and now owns many of the classic brands like Omega and Tissot.

And then there is healthcare. Running along the banks of the Rhine in Basel recently, I passed the headquarters of Roche on one side, and Novartis on the other. On another visit, to Zurich I can smell the chocolate of Nestle from the city centre. While a little south in the small town of Zug, often known as the IP capital of the world, I find Crispr Therapeutics and Coca Cola’s Hellenic Bottling Company.

While some traditional Swiss companies do still share the 20th century engineering malaise of Germany, stuck in their unionised practices and superiority mindset, many other Swiss companies have reawaken to the new world, with new agendas and priorities.

One example is Holcim, the global leader in cement, but redefining itself in a much more holistic way, as a global leader in sustainable contruction, or even sustainable urban development. Addressing its old carbon-intensive materials, it is rapidly on the path to decarbonising its own practices, embracing circular business models and innovative alternative materials.

So who are some of my favourite Swiss brands and businesses, arguably fighting above their weight in global markets, and continuing to thrive through imagination and engineering, in a world of rapid change?

In fast-changing, uncertain and tech-charged markets, innovation has become the top corporate priority.

Apple is still seen by many as the world’s most innovative company. Microsoft, however is closing the gap, both in terms of perceived innovativeness, and market value (both companies currently closing in on $3 trillion market caps). While Apple is potentially getting sidetracked by AR, with its headsets and spatial computing, Microsoft has embraced ChatGPT, and embedded it into many of its cloud-based services and worksuites.

Two “Most Innovative Companies” reports compete to rank the world’s top innovators each year.

• BCG take a more analytical approach, based around investment and outcomes. It ranks Apple first, followed by Tesla, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft. Asian companies Samsing, Huawei and BYD also make the top 10, as does Siemens, the top European innovator.
• Fast Company takes a more qualitative look at where newness and disruption are rife, with insight stories about some of the more off-beat creative businesses. It ranks OpenAI top, followed by McDonalds, Airbnb and Holdfast Collective (that’s the non-profit owner of Patagonia). Brazil’s Nubank follows, then Microsoft, Roblox, Webtoon, Ramp and Tiffany &Co.

Overall, innovation rose as a top corporate priority in 2023, with 79% of companies ranking it among their top three goals, according to BCG. As growth has slowed in core markets, the importance of being able to innovate new products and services that carry companies into new markets with new business models has increased.

Innovation at Bosch

Projects will dominate organisation work, replacing the old structures and job roles. They include labs and incubators, bringing focus, collaboration, change and speed.

Project Purple

“We’re starting a new project. It’s so secret, I can’t tell you what it  is, or who you will work for. But what I can tell you is if you choose to accept this role, you’re going to work harder than you ever have in your entire life. You’re going to have to give up nights and weekends probably for a couple years as we make this product.”

Scott Forstall sent that email as he started his role as head of Apple’s iPhone software division. Since its debut in 2007 the iPhone has become both a cultural and economic phenomenon, replacing Blackberry and Nokia as the world’s most ubiquitous smart phone and transforming the entire market.

Soon after the first iPod was released in 2002, Steve Jobs began thinking about an Apple phone and in 2005 and initiated a number of phone-related projects, including the doomed partnership with Motorola. The iPhone’s ideation phase was kept low profile, with a limited investments and small teams. Many companies launch a full-scale project for every idea they generate, mostly ending up in wasted resources.

While many in Apple were enthused about a phone, Jobs was sceptical. As the project sponsor he was a powerful source of inspiration, a fierce curator of good ideas, but not afraid to reject less good ones. When he did give the green light to “Project Purple”, in November 2014, he was fully engaged, dedicating around 40% of his personal time to supervise and lead the teams.

The Purple team was one of the most talented in tech history. Whilst they had never made a phone before, they were the best engineers, the best programmers, and the best designers around. Sworn to secrecy for two and a half years. Whilst the final product might look beautifully simple, it was excruciating work. Jobs wanted to see a demo of everything. Designers would often create mock-ups of a single design element, like a button, 50 times before it met his exacting standards.

Jobs famously launched the revolutionary phone on 29th June 2007 at Macworld. The final months had been frantic, everyone 100% focused, as the team raced to meet the fixed launch date.

Apple spent $150m developing the iPhone, according to some estimates, a smart investment given its subsequent impact on the market. It transformed Apple’s business.

1.4 million iPhones were sold in 2007 rising to 201 million by 2016, and more than a billion by 2020. iPhones account for 69% of Apple’s total revenue, with an estimated margin over 50%, generating more than $54 billion profits.

Teams beat individuals

At design firm IDEO they have a poster that dominates their workplace “Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius”.

There are two messages. Firstly that teams are more experimental, their diversity bringing more ideas and options to explore. Second, that however smart an individual might believe they are, they are unlikely to go as far or as fast at the team.

In my experience it is often the team leader who thinks they know better, and seeks to dominate the team. But it might equally be a technologist who is convinced that they know what customers want better than customers, or another person driven by their own perspective and passion.

Project teams need the uniqueness and expertise brought by individuals but combined with the power of teamwork. The same tension exists at the business level. Many organisations feel they can or should do everything themselves, rather than working collaboratively with partner organisations.

It takes a more enlightened business to know what it is best at, and then bring together others to do other tasks. Look for example at Nespresso’s business model. They know that their authority and expertise lie in coffee, and in brand and marketing. Everything else from making their coffee machines to managing their call centres, they leave to others.

From functions to projects

“Projects not functions define today’s organisation” says my good friend, and global project guru, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez. “In the past 90% of our jobs were functional roles, regular and managing, while 10% were working on projects. Today 90% of most jobs are project-based, about change and innovation, and very little of it maintaining the status quo.”

Long gone, in most organisations, are the fixed offices with big desks to support executive egos. Gone too are the more open workspace cubicles, where people still liked to claim their domains, a sense of home at work. In a paperless world of clouds and laptops, desks are really not necessary. Gone too are the job descriptions which so many employees used to seek to be clear on their tasks, and refuse to go further.

Today everyone is part of a talent pool, and needs to have the flexibility to team and reteam with different leaders, different colleagues, different projects, as required.

Consulting firms have long worked in this way, and offer a useful model to learn from. I spent almost 10 years in such an environment, and over that time worked on around 100 different projects, many in different teams, for different clients, with different leaders. Stability came in the form that I belonged to a certain skill group, with a notional leader, largely concerned with recruitment and thought leadership. My performance was a based on a formula of how I spent my time and contributed to sales and delivery, plus my broader contribution to the organisation. It was an incredibly fluid structure, responsive to clients, but also flexible personally, in where I chose to live, and how I chose to allocate my time.

Fast and collaborative projects

Project teams are most likely to bring together a diversity of talent, from different functions and organisations, employees and external talent. This is most obvious in areas like marketing, where creative agencies will work with their clients as joint teams, but equally in technological developments where expertise naturally resides outside.

Projects give an organisation more agility, to flex their size as their workload demands, to tap into skills as needed, and accelerate progress. They can embrace the same fast and lean principles as applied specifically to innovation – starting with a “minimum viable project” then testing and learning, stretching ideas but also eliminating bad ones quickly, working in parallel where possible, testing and learning to evolve once implemented.

Projects typically need dedicated team spaces to work, people to lead, processes to operate, metrics to evaluate, and incentives to reward. Most organisations already have innovation spaces, which range from creative kitchens and idea labs, through to incubators that accelerate new businesses, and venture arms to host independent start-ups.

Daimler’s Lab1886, Disney ID8 Studios, Nestle’s HENRi lab, IKEA’s Future Home incubator, Nike’s Explore Team, Shell’s TechWork Labs. Whatever the form of these different environments, they all seek to create protected and dedicated spaces where ideas can emerge, new projects and new businesses can flourish.

Jeddah has a wonderful new waterfront, the perfect spot for an early evening walk, watching the sunset over the Red Sea, although perhaps not when the F1 Grand Prix is in town. It’s ultra-modern shopping malls and world-class restaurants are not far away. In other cities across the region, there is an energy and optimism to create the future.

In the boardroom of a leading business, we explore new opportunities for growth – the relative merits of fast growing Asian and African markets (compared to the stagnation of the west, to which companies used to aspire) – and new ways to innovate, leap-frogging old approaches to embrace the very latest technologies, new business models, and ecosystem partnerships.

Working with companies like Almarai, the leading dairy, and STC, the innovative telecoms and tech leader, it is obvious that ambition has no boundaries, and there is an expectation to innovate not just new products, but entire markets. NEOM, the world’s largest construction project, seeks to reimagine the entire concept of a city, and people’s lifestyles.

A short flight to Dubai, and the gleaming Ministry of Possibilities, a real government department where you are greeted by humanoid robots, symbolises the intent to create a new futures. The Museum of the Future looks forwards not backwards. Culturally, both KSA and UAE seek to fuse the best of Arabic heritage with high-tech progress.

Another short hop to Cairo, and the new Grand Egyptian Museum shimmers below the classical mirage of the ancient pyramids. Egypt is a huge market, and a symbol of the growth potential across North Africa and beyond. Cairo to Jeddah is now the world’s busiest international air route, and Riyadh to Dubai is second.

Having worked with many Middle Eastern countries, there is a huge sense of strategic renewal, and desire to grow worldclass talent to lead it. From NBK and Zain in Kuwait, to Al Ghurair and Chaloub in UAE, to Hungerstation and Savola in KSA, I have found a depth of talented leaders ready to shape the future of their region, but also to make an impact globally too.

Forbes’ Top CEOs in the Middle East

Many Middle East-based CEOs have more power and responsibilities than CEOs in other regions as they head companies that are monopolies or duopolies in the Arab world and market leaders globally.

This phenomenon is partly due to GCC countries investing their sovereign wealth into large domestic businesses. The region’s biggest banks, telecoms, industrial, oil and gas, mining, and even hospitality companies are owned by the government. This makes the role of the CEO even more challenging. As well as managing a profitable business, the CEO also needs to focus on the vision of the government. Many of these leaders also head government bodies, and some are also ministers or cabinet ministers.

In 2023, the region’s top CEOs have focused on sustainability, consolidation, and growth. Saudi Arabia, in particular, invested across sectors. Accelerated corporatization boosted economies, and the consolidation of government companies saw larger corporations emerge. A number of large IPOs in the region also unlocked value for companies. Global events also contributed to burgeoning corporate profits, including the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and COP28 in Dubai.

Forbes’ third annual list of the top 100 CEOs in the Middle East features leaders representing 22 nationalities. Emiratis dominate with 23 entries, followed by Egyptians with 19 and Saudis with 18. This is a positive sign for localization, with most large companies now headed by local executives. The banking sector has the most entries, with 17, followed by real estate and construction with 14 and telecommunications with nine.

Among the CEOs on this year’s list are the head of the world’s largest oil company, the head of the world’s largest LNG producer, the head of the world’s busiest international airport, and the head of the world’s largest international airline. Combined, the 100 CEOs managed revenues of over $1 trillion in 2022. The companies are collectively worth more than $5 trillion.

Forbes’ Top 100 Listed Companies in Middle East

In 2023, the aggregate market value of the Middle East’s Top 100 Listed Companies has decreased marginally by 5%, from $4 trillion in 2022 to $3.8 trillion. However, the value of the aggregate sales for these 100 companies has jumped 38.5% to $1.1 trillion, with profits increasing by 37.7% to hit $277.7 billion. The value of their aggregate assets has also risen by 9.5% to $4.6 trillion as of 2022 end.

GCC countries dominate 91% of the list, with Saudi Arabia being the most represented with 33 entries, followed by the U.A.E. with 28, Qatar with 16, and Kuwait with nine.

The world’s largest oil and gas giant, Aramco, retains the top spot with $604.4 billion in sales and a market value of $2.1 trillion, followed by SABIC, Qatar’s QNB Group, and the Saudi National Bank. The U.A.E.’s International Holding Company jumped from the #12 rank in the 2022 list to the fifth spot this year, with $235.9 billion in market value and total assets of $62.1 billion.

Despite the fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the banking and financial services sector still dominates, with 42 entries holding a total of $3 trillion in assets and generating $45.4 billion in net income. However, the energy sector—led by Aramco—generated the bulk of the profits, hitting $162.4 billion in 2022.

Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in the Middle East

Innovation is bigger here than in Silicon Valley or South Korea. Every business seeks to innovate. And consumers to shareholders expect and demand it more than ever. There is a wealth of fascinating companies driving change in the region across various disciplines, from climate tech and advertising to healthcare and education. Here are just a few:

AIQ … for addressing the energy transition challenge through innovative tech

While we develop new energy sources to mitigate climate change and environmental degradation, improving the efficiency and sustainability of our current energy sources is imperative. AIQ is addressing the energy transition challenge through the innovative application of artificial intelligence and machine learning, big data analytics, computer vision, and other 4IR technologies, developing solutions and enabling it to deliver sustainable growth. Formed as a joint venture between global energy company ADNOC and Abu Dhabi’s technology leader G42, AIQ has assembled a team of over 100 data scientists and subject matter experts, leveraging the company’s industry data and knowledge to develop a portfolio of over 20 solutions. They have created an Advanced Reservoir 360 solution, an Al-driven reservoir visualization and performance application that optimizes the exploitation of oil and gas fields. Utilizing AIQ AI-Emissions Platform, a predictive analytics platform, enterprises are given detailed visibility into their carbon footprints and streamlining ESG reporting.

Chalhoub Group … for enhancing and transforming retail with emerging tech

Chalhoub Group accelerated in domains such as Web3, and Al in the past two years. For example, SOL3MATES, a web3-native sneaker brand, pushed the boundaries of innovation, creativity, and storytelling. Another achievement is the Christofle x Prince Roblox Collection, a collection of gaming wearables in partnership with Prince, a fashion brand by Boltable Studios. This NFT collection and a collection of wearables in Roblox meet the needs of the younger generation, and it introduced a crypto checkout option on Christofle.com. In 2022, the brand launched Reflaunt to enable customers to purchase luxury, second-hand pieces, sell their designer bags, shoes, and accessories through the Level Shoes website, and receive either cash or store credit. The group also implemented RPA for e-commerce product uploads, leading to a 50% reduction in the enrichment process time, streamlining operations, and enhancing efficiency, and ventured into the realm of Generative Al for e-commerce product imagery.

e& … for advancing smart and green digital solutions

Committed to driving digital innovation and rooted in a sustainability framework, e&’s approach encompasses securing a digital future for all, low-carbon operations, and a commitment to social betterment. Some of their achievements include providing sustainable edge data center solutions and implementing data technologies to empower companies to embrace sustainable agendas and reduce carbon emissions. On track to meet its 2030 net-zero target, it reduced energy consumption by 52% through energy-efficient radio equipment. It boosts green development initiatives with enhanced network capacity and efficiency for hyperscale cloud computing. It offers a wide range of solutions from its smart city portfolio, including solar energy, energy management, IoT solutions like intelligent buildings, and waste management.

Masdar City … for making sustainable living accessible

Masdar City, the sustainable community in Abu Dhabi, is addressing several global challenges facing sustainable development, such as pioneering a methodology that makes green buildings economically viable, even for developing countries, focusing on improving energy and water efficiency, driving technological innovation and growth through its free zone and clean-tech startup VC, and sharing lessons learned to help advance the real estate industry achieve net-zero. The Masdar City Square, over 29,000 square meters and features seven single and multi-tenant office buildings, will be the capital’s first net-zero office building. Masdar City is also home to The Catalyst, a venture arm focused on investing in climate-tech startups. These startups are developing innovative solutions to reduce waste and pollution, such as turning industrial waste into ceramic tile and organic waste into animal feed. Masdar Park, which uses recycled materials, is a key component of Masdar City’s “greenprint” for sustainable urban development, increasing open green spaces, public recreational facilities, and sustainable social infrastructure projects.

Pearl Semiconductor … for being a new chip on the block

With the growing importance of cloud computing and storage, and with 5G driving greater network density, the global market is seeing a surge in demand for high-frequency data connectivity that, in turn, requires ultra-low noise timing IC chips and programmability.

Egyptian company Pearl Semiconductor patented all-digital PLL technology for ultra-low-noise timing solutions. Its SpurFree architecture is critical in timing solutions for next-generation connectivity standards that will handle increasing data flow within and between data centers, including optical transmission networks and 5G backhaul. With the geopolitical situation between the US and China, the need for a non-US supplier of such devices is critical. The technology is the foundation for building a full-breadth line of products, including programmable reference clocks, multi-output clock generators, clock buffers, jitter attenuators, and network synchronizers

Pure Harvest Smart Farms … for delivering superior, sustainably-grown produce

Pure Harvest has leveraged technology to optimize indoor farming operations to ensure high-quality fresh produce year-round to meet consumer demands. By integrating cutting-edge automation, precise climate control, and data analytics, it enhanced crop yields, minimized resource usage, and reduced the environmental impact of food production. They are also pioneers of Advanced Controlled Environment Agriculture technologies in the GCC, enabling a high-tech, hybrid growing system that makes sustainable, economical, year-round production for locally grown produce possible. In July 2023, it expanded its product range by introducing over ten new products, including blackberries, raspberries, and sweet melons.

ZainTech … for bringing expertise across technology horizontals

Launched in 2021, ZainTech’s products and services portfolio spans six key areas: Cloud hosting and advanced cloud management, security and cyber products, digital product offerings with mass market appeal, pre-built and customizable digital solutions for smart cities, data policy governance, and drones and robotics. ZainTech utilizes Zain Group’s advanced communications infrastructure across its operations, including 5G, fiber, and microwave links, and has positioned to be the digital transformation partner for enterprises and governments in the MENA region, across operations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, and the UAE. The company has created a value proposition tailored to solve customer challenges by providing a global offering with a local presence.

The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.

Incredible technologies and geopolitical shifts, complex markets and stagnating growth, demanding customers and disruptive entrepreneurs, environmental crisis and social distrust, unexpected shocks and uncertain futures.

For every business leader, the challenge is about making sense of today’s rapidly changing world – and how to prepare for, and succeed in, tomorrow’s world.

“Future Radar” is not science fiction, or even futurology. It is about exploring and learning from the new businesses, and behaviours, emerging on the edges of markets right now.

• How will your marketspaces evolve over the next 5-10 years? Where are you best opportunities?
• Which companies will shape this future? What can you learn from them and their strategies?
• What are the next agendas for customers and investors? How can you shape and lead them now?

We explore how to reimagine business, to reinvent markets, to reengage people – to survive and thrive, and move forwards to create a better future. We consider what it means to combine profit with more purpose, intelligent technologies with creative people, radical innovation with sustainable impact.

We learn from the innovative strategies of incredible companies, leading today, and shaping tomorrow – from Aerofarms and Amazon, to Biontech and Bolt, Canva and Carbon, Darktrace to DBS, Glossier and Gymshark, Notpla and Northvolt, On and Orsted, Patagonia and PingAn, Rappi and Revolut, to Zipline and Zozo, and many more.

Examples of Future Radar

These are examples from recent projects. Our live research tracks the emerging trends and most innovative companies in each different sector. This is then focused and customised for specific client interests – keynote speeches, strategy workshops, etc. It is typically used by companies to rapidly accelerate knowledge in a sector, focus investment choices, and drive innovation …

• Learn from 250 innovative companies shaping the future
• Be inspired by 100 inspiring leaders rethinking business possibilities
• Explore the most significant future megatrends and trend kaleidoscope 2024
• Consider all the best new research in business futures project and sustainable futures project

Embracing the megatrends of change

We live in a time of incredible change. Dramatic, pervasive, and relentless. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. Incredible technologies, expectant consumers, climate crisis, social distrust, and much more. How will you embrace the megatrends? Disruptive technologies, connected and intelligent; economic power shifts, 80% of the middle class in emerging markets; resource scarcity, where water is the biggest risk; demographic change, where markets are older, demanding and mobile; and rapid urbanisation, 33 of the 45 megacities in Asia.

• Every market is shaken up, how pandemic accelerated the future
• Asia to AI, GenZ and gene-editing, sustainability and the super-apps
• Megatrends, markets and metaverses, and what they mean for me
• What it means to be “digital” in a tech, human, changing world?
• Customers around the world, and the new agendas and behaviours
• What can we learn the world’s most innovative companies right now
• Turning challenges into opportunities, driving exponential growth.

Creating a better future for your business

The old codes of business don’t work anymore. The most innovative companies – from Amazon and Bytedance, to Coupang and Deepmind – succeed with new codes. So what are the new ideas to win in a fast and dynamic world of Asian renaissance, entrepreneurial supremacy, social conscience and smarter machines? What can you learn from Jio’s revolution in India, DBS’s transformation of banking, PingAn in insurance? How can you be inspired by courageous leaders like 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki, Haier’s Zhang Ruimin and Citigroup’s Jane Fraser?

• Finding purpose, driving moonshots, starting from the future back
• Turning purpose into strategy into innovation, for relentless change
• Business model, platforms and digital ecosystems
• Exploring companies like Orsted to PingAn
• The new DNA of business and leadership
• Growth mindset, driving change and business transformation
• Having the courage to lead a better future

Accelerating Change

We live in a time of great promise but also great uncertainty.

Markets are more crowded, competition is intense, customer aspirations are constantly fuelled by new innovations and dreams. Technology disrupts every industry, from banking to construction, entertainment to healthcare. It drives new possibilities and solutions, but also speed and complexity, uncertainty and fear.

As digital and physical worlds fuse to augment how we live and work, AI and robotics enhance but also challenge our capabilities, whilst ubiquitous supercomputing, genetic editing and self-driving cars take us further.

Technologies with the power to help us leap forwards in unimaginable ways. To transform business, to solve our big problems, to drive radical innovation, to accelerate growth and achieve progress socially and environmentally too.

We are likely to see more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years.

• Markets accelerate, 4 times faster than 20 years ago, based on the accelerating speed of innovation and diminishing lifecycles of products.
• People are more capable, 825 times more connected than 20 years ago, with access to education, unlimited knowledge, tools to create anything.
• Consumer attitudes change, 78% of young people choose brands that do good, they reject corporate jobs, and see the world with the lens of gamers.

However, change goes far beyond the technology.

Markets will transform, converge and evolve faster. From old town Ann Arbor to the rejuvenated Bilbao, today’s megacities like Chennai and the future Saudi tech city of Neom, economic power will continue to shift. China has risen to the top of the new global business order, whilst India and eventually Africa will follow.

Industrialisation challenges the natural equilibrium of our planet’s resources. Today’s climate crisis is the result of our progress, and our problem to solve. Globalisation challenges our old notions of nationhood and locality. Migration changes where we call home. Religious values compete with social values, economic priorities conflict with social priorities. Living standards improve but inequality grows.

Our current economic system is stretched to its limit. Global shocks, such as the global pandemic of 2020, exposes its fragility. We open our eyes to realise that we weren’t prepared for different futures, and that our drive for efficiency has left us unable to cope. Such crises will become more frequent, as change and disruption accelerate.

However, these shocks are more likely to accelerate change in business, rather than stifle it, to wake us up to the real impacts of our changing world – to the urgency of action, to the need to think and act more dramatically.

The old codes don’t work

Business is not fit for the future. Most organisations were designed for stable and predictable worlds, where the future evolves as planned, markets are definitive, and choices are clear.

The future isn’t like it used to be.

Dynamic markets are, by definition, turbulent. Whilst economic cycles have typically followed a pattern of peaks and troughs every 10-15 years, these will likely become more frequent.  Change is fast and exponential, uncertain and unpredictable, complex and ambiguous demanding new interpretation and imagination.

Yet too many business leaders hope that the strategies that made them successful in the past will continue to work in the future. They seek to keep stretching the old models in the hope that they will continue to see them through. Old business plans are tweaked each year, infrastructures are tested to breaking point, and people are asked to work harder.

In a way of dramatic, unpredictable change, this is not enough to survive, let alone thrive.

• Growth is harder. Global GDP growth has declined by more than a third in the past decade. As the west stagnates, Asia grows, albeit more slowly.
• Companies struggle, their average lifespan falling from 75 years in 1950 to 15 years today, 52% of the Fortune 500 in 2000 no longer exist in 2020.
• Leaders are under pressure. 44% of today’s business leaders have held their position for at least 5 years, compared to 77% half a century ago.

Profit is no longer enough; people expect business to achieve more. Business cannot exist in isolation from the world around them, pursuing customers without care for the consequence. The old single-minded obsession with profits is too limiting. Business depends more than ever on its resources – people, communities, nature, partners – and will need to find a better way to embrace them.

Technology is no longer enough; innovation needs to be more human. Technology will automate and interpret reality, but it won’t empathise and imagine new futures. Ubiquitous technology-driven innovation quickly becomes commoditised, available from anywhere in the world, so we need to add value in new ways. The future is human, creative, and intuitive. People will matter more to business, not less.

Sustaining the environment is not enough. 200 years of industrialisation has stripped the planet of its ability to renew itself, and ultimately to sustain life. Business therefore needs to give back more than it takes. As inequality and distrust have grown in every society, traditional jobs are threatened by automation and stagnation, meaning that social issues will matter even more, both globally and locally.

The new DNA of business

As business leaders, our opportunity is to create a better business, one that is fit for the future, that can act in more innovative and responsible ways.

How can we harness the potential of this relentless and disruptive change, harness the talents of people and the possibilities of technology? How can business, with all its power and resources, be a platform for change, and a force for good?

We need to find new codes to succeed. We need to find new ways to work, to recognise business as a system that be virtuous, where less can be more, and growth can go beyond the old limits. This demands that we make new connections:

• Profit + Purpose … to achieve more enlightened progress
• Technology + Humanity … to achieve more human ingenuity
• Innovation + Sustainability … to achieve more positive impact

We need to create a new framework for business, a better business – to reimagine why and redesign how we work, as well as reinvent what and refocus where we do business.

Imagine a future business that looks forwards not back, that rises up to shape the future on its own terms, making sense of change to find new possibilities, inspiring people with vision and optimism. Imagine a future that inspires progress, seeks new sources of growth, embraces networks and partners to go further, and enables people to achieve more.

Imagine too, a future business that creates new opportunity spaces, by connecting novel ideas and untapped needs, creatively responding to new customer agendas. Imagine a future business that disrupts the disruptors, where large companies have the vision and courage to reimagine themselves and compete as equals to fast and entrepreneurial start-ups.

Imagine a future business that embraces humanity, searches for better ideas, that fuse technology and people in more enlightened ways, to solve the big problems of society, and improve everyone’s lives. Imagine a future business that works collectively, self-organises to thrive without hierarchy, connects with partners in rich ecosystems, designs jobs around people, to do inspiring work.

Imagine also, a future business which is continually transforming, that thrives by learning better and faster, develops a rich portfolio of business ideas and innovations to sustain growth and progress. Imagine a future business that creates positive impact on the world, benefits all stakeholders with a circular model of value creation, that addresses negatives, and creates a net positive impact for society.

Creating a better business is an opportunity for every person who works inside or alongside it. It is not just a noble calling, to do something better for the world, but also a practical calling, a way to overcome the many limits of today, and attain future success for you and your business.You could call it the dawn of a new capitalism.

Explore more from Peter Fisk …

• Next Agenda of best ideas and priorities for business
• Business Futures Project collating all the best ideas
• Megatrends 2030 in a world accelerated by pandemic
• 49 Codes to help you develop a better business future
• 250 companies innovators shaking up the world
• 100 leaders with the courage to shape a better future
• Education that is innovative, issue-driven, action-driving
• Consulting that is collaborative, strategic and innovative
• Speaking that is inspiring, topical, engaging and actionable

Ideas drive the world forwards.

I remember telling my boss, a South African guy called Bruce Tindale, that back in 1999. He wasn’t convinced. He was a project management expert, focused on making solid things happen. But despite the world being in the grip of a fantastic new craze, called the Internet, people were still uncertain.

We’d just seen the initial crash of dotcom start-ups, who had lost sight of profit in a manic rush for eyeballs. This made him even more sceptical. But then we started talking about what made the winners different, companies like Amazon, who didn’t just want to automate old business models, but had new ideas. I also talked him through the rise of intangible assets – from brands to patents to relationships – which were increasingly displacing the old building blocks of value creation. He started to engage.

We then talked about investors, who look to the future not the past. We talked about leaders who need to go beyond the visions of their predecessors. We talked about brands that engage and inspire consumers with purpose and stories. We talked about innovations which start with the germ of a concept, but then need to be nurtured into something practical.

Eventually he was convinced. He asked me to set up a new business unit – about ideas – and specifically how to engage business leaders and their teams in the future, in possibilities, and to develop new ideas about strategies, innovations and delivery. Together with a colleague, Jonathan Hogg, we gathered a group of idea catalysts from inside and outside the company, and started our ideation journey. We devoured every book around, curating all the best ideas. We formed joint ventures with Pearson, SAP and Wiley. We got more ideas, and started to build a new business.

As for Bruce, a few years later he retired. I asked him what he was doing. He said he’d had a great idea, but never had time to make it happen. Inspired by the vineyards of his native South Africa, he wanted to create an English vineyard in the Surrey Hills near his home. Today I look back and see him thriving on his idea, the High Clandon Estate Vineyard, producing award-winning sparking wines.

Which brings me back to ideas.

And books.

So here are some of the most recent business books, and their big ideas to move the world forwards:

The Coming Wave

Synthetic biology, quantum computing. Everything is about to change.

Soon we will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.

None of us are prepared.

This is a ground-breaking book from the ultimate AI insider, Mustafa Suleyman, who was co-founder of London-based DeepMind, the AI business which is now part of Google. Recently he left Google to set up Inflection AI with Reid Hoffman, of Linkedin fame and fortune. They are working on a personalised AI called Pi. While ChatGPT will give standard answers to the world, Pi is more intimate, learning about you, and from you, and personalising its intelligence to you.

The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. He shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side and the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other. Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia?

 

Hidden Potential

The science of achieving great things.

We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distances we ourselves can travel. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.

Adam Grant, one of my favourite business authors, weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid story­telling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess – it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the charac­ter skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.

Adam’s book offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. He argues that anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.

TomorrowMind

Martin Seligman is a visionary psychologist. He is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the Positive Psychology Center. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, MD, has served as chief product officer and chief innovation officer at BetterUp, and pyschiatrist.

In recent years, workplace toxicity, industry volatility, employee isolation and technology-driven change have threatened the psychological well-being of employees. The rise of quiet quitting has shown that when we can’t flourish at work, both personal success and corporate productivity suffer.

As we sit on the cusp of some of the most turbulent economic changes in history many of us wonder if we can not only survive but flourish in our careers.

Based on the science of thriving, TomorrowMind proves we can, and provides essential plans and actionable advice for succeeding in the uncertain future of work. Build skills in resilience, foresight and creativity and help to cultivate workplace that fosters connection and meaning for yourself and your team. Engaging evidence shows how individuals, teams, and organizations that excel at these five key attributes will win in the whitewater of work every time.

Right Kind of Wrong

Why learning to fail can teach us to thrive.

We used to think of failure as a problem, to be avoided at all costs. Now, we’re often told that failure is desirable – that we must ‘fail fast, fail often’. The trouble is, neither approach distinguishes the good failures from the bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well.

The ideas around experimentation – test and learn – are not new. From Carol Dweck’s book Mindset which distinguished a growth mindset (loving change) from a fixed mindset (loving stability), to Eric Rise’ epic Lean Start-Up, business has increasingly embraced a more agile, experimental approach.

Now, Amy Edmondson – awarding winning Harvard organisational psychologist – frames it as how we get failure wrong, and how to get it right. She draws on a lifetime’s research into the science of ‘psychological safety’ to show that the most successful cultures are those in which you can fail openly, without your mistakes being held against you. She introduces the three archetypes of failure – simple, complex and intelligent – and explains how to harness the revolutionary potential of the good ones (and eliminate the bad).

And she tells vivid stories ranging from the history of open heart surgery to the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, all to ask a simple, provocative question: What if it is only by learning to fail that we can hope to truly succeed?

Build

This is an unorthodox guide to making things worth making.

Tony Fadell started his 30 year Silicon Valley career at General Magic, the most influential startup nobody has ever heard of.

Then he went on to make the iPod and iPhone, start Nest and create the Nest Learning Thermostat. Throughout his career Tony has authored more than 300 patents. He now leads the investment and advisory firm Future Shape, where he mentors the next generation of startups that are changing the world.

As Malcolm Gladwell puts it  ‘Tony has made more cool stuff than almost anyone else in the history of Silicon Valley, and in Build he tells us how.”

Fadell calls his book a mentor in a box. But he doesn’t follow the standard Silicon Valley credo that you have to radically reinvent everything you do. His advice is unorthodox because it’s old school. Because it’s based on human nature, not gimmicks.

Elon Musk

Love him, or not, he’s an enigma.

From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of Elon Musk, the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?

Beijing Rules

This is the story of China’s two-decade quest for global dominance.

For several decades China’s ascendancy has been supported by an astonishingly broad and deep portfolio of quiet coercion. Stories of the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian reach are breathtaking – the gagging of sports stars and huge Western brands; Hollywood self-censorship; infrastructure deals in exchange for political loyalty in multilateral organizations; and of course – communications firms. But these are just the most visible examples.

Beijing Rules exposes the armoury of strategies with which China has exploited Western weakness to position itself as leader in the game of nations: tying market access to political acquiescence; punitive tariffs; online disinformation operations; use of private companies to spy on global users; leveraging vaccines for geopolitical gain; and the crushing of democracy in Hong Kong. With these weapons and dextrous manoeuvrings during the global pandemic, China positioned itself to take its place at the apex of world powers.

Bethany Allen, an internationally recognized investigator into China’s covert power, shows Western institutions have bowed to and even enabled Beijing’s coercion. As we come reeling out of a global pandemic and eyes are on a new war in Europe, this revealing analysis sounds the alarm about the most significant shift in the new world order, and what we must do to prevent the loss of freedoms we take for granted.

Going Infinite

The rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried.

From the author of The Big Short and Flash Boys, the high-octane story of the enigmatic figure at the heart of one of the 21st century’s most spectacular financial collapses

‘I asked him how much it would take for him to sell FTX and go do something other than make money. He thought the question over. “One hundred and fifty billion dollars,” he finally said-though he added that he had use for “infinity dollars”…’

SBF wasn’t just rich. Before he turned thirty he’d become the world’s youngest billionaire, making a record fortune in the crypto frenzy. CEOs, celebrities and world leaders vied for his time. At one point he considered paying off the entire national debt of the Bahamas so he could take his business there.

Then it all fell apart.

Who was this Gatsby of the crypto world, a rumpled guy in cargo shorts, whose eyes twitched across TV interviews as he played video games on the side, who even his million-dollar investors still found a mystery? What gave him such an extraordinary ability to make money – and how did his empire collapse so spectacularly?

Michael Lewis was there when it happened, having got to know Bankman-Fried during his epic rise. In Going Infinite he tells us a story like no other, taking us through the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own. Both psychological portrait of a preternaturally gifted ‘thinking machine’, and wild financial roller-coaster ride, this is a twenty-first-century epic of high-frequency trading and even higher stakes, of crypto mania and insane amounts of money, of hubris and downfall.

Of course, not all ideas are good.

Radius Recycling, previously known as Schnitzer Steel, is the world’s most sustainable company of 2023, followed by Denmark’s wind turbine business Vestas, and Australian furniture maker Brambles.

Radius is a story of how a one-man scrap metal recycler from Portland, Oregon, rose to lead the world, and demonstrate the importance of both the circular economy and low-carbon metals in the energy transition.

Steel, of course, is one of the world’s most carbon-intensive products (accounting for roughly 7% of human-produced CO2 emission). However Radius, originally known as Alaska Junk Company when founded by Sam Schnitzer in 1906, has become a global leader in the collection, processing and sale of the world’s most recycled product: steel.

The company generates most of its revenues from recycling steel and other metals. And about a third comes from forging recycled scrap steel into finished products in electric arc furnaces that are powered by hydropower, making the metal extremely low carbon.

The spark for its current performance came almost a decade ago when the company launched what it called a sustainability framework. “We’ve been recycling for about a century,” says Radius’ CEO Tamara Lundgren. “But how do we incorporate that into a framework that our employees, suppliers, investors and communities can identify with?

In 2019, the company set about bolstering its framework by adopting specific goals and metrics to track progress. These included reducing Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions from recycling operations by 25% from 2019 levels by 2025, and reaching net-zero GHG emissions for all operations (steel manufacturing, metals recycling and auto dismantling) by 2050.

Radius’ 2022 emissions were 24% lower than in 2019, its baseline year when it started tracking its GHGs. This reduction has come from the introduction of measures such as investments in best-available-technology emission control systems that, at the company’s Oakland, California, facility, reduce its Scope 1 emissions by around 3,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. Other measures include improved energy efficiency, the use of alternative fuels and resource-conservation projects.

The approach to sustainability has ultimately paid off, with the company returning a top-quartile performance on a range of Global 100 indicators. It saw a 74% increase in energy productivity over last year and made significant improvements in water (69%) and carbon (55%) productivity. It also scored well for its proportion of non-male board members (five out of nine are women) and racially diverse executives, while it also saw a significant drop in its worker injury rate. The company’s ranking also received a boost by its linking of its CEO’s pay to the achievement of sustainability targets (11% of variable compensation is tied to reaching these goals) and its policy of offering paid sick leave.

Financially, last year was the second-best year in the company’s history. “Our people and planet goals are clearly not coming at the expense of profit,” Lundgren says. “For a company that is 116 years old and that many consider to be ‘old economy’ to be recognized as a leading force in sustainability is a great example of how sustainability principles can be successfully applied to an industrial company.”

Yet there is still a widespread ignorance of the importance of recycling steel, copper, aluminum and nickel – all of which Radius recycles using its advanced metal recovery systems – in the energy transition, Lundgren adds. “There has been underinvestment in metals and mining for years, and there are shortages of some critical ferrous and non-ferrous metals, which we recover and recycle,” she says. “We can’t eliminate these shortages, but we can alleviate them. Metals recycling is one of the foundational pillars for global decarbonization.”

Corporate Knights’ annual ranking of the world’s 100 most sustainable corporations is based on a rigorous assessment of over 6,000 public companies with revenue over US$1 billion. They are assessed across 25 key performance indicators, including % sustainable revenue, % sustainable investment, % taxes paid, carbon productivity, and racial and gender diversity.

It is the best-performing global sustainability index (ticker: CKG100), with more than 10 years of history. Since its inception in 2005, the Global 100 Index has generated a total investment return of 270.7% compared to 222.1% for All Country World Index.

Sustainable revenue contributes around half of gross revenue for the Global 100 compared to just 5% for most companies.  For every tonne of carbon they produce, Global 100 companies earn 33 times more revenue than ACWI firms.

Download the full rankings, an XLS evaluating the top 100 across the 25 indicators.

Some other highlights from the analysis include

• Spanish electricity company Iberdrola led all other Global 100 companies in terms of sustainable investments in 2022. It pumped €8.6 billion into green assets, such as renewable energy and EV charging, as well as energy storage and hydrogen production.
• Germany’s Commerzbank had the highest ratio of cash taxes paid over the 2017 to 2021 period, at 30% (down from 34.63% in the previous period). Of the top 10 companies in this category, five others were from Europe.
• Norway’s Storebrand has the lowest gap in CEO-to-average-worker pay. CEO Odd Arild Grefstad’s compensation increased to 9.32 million kroner in 2022, a ration of 6.5 to 1 to average salary.
• Xerox is the leader in gender diversity, in part thanks to the efforts of former CEO Ursula Burns. More than 58% of its execs are women, up from 43% last year.
• In 2020,  HP announced a goal of doubling the number of its executives who are black and African American by 2025. It is already well on its way to diversifying its leadership, as 58% of its executives are racially diverse, up from 43% in 2021.

With the largest LED screen in the world, the new $2 billion Sphere venue in Las Vegas blows your mind. When U2 opened the doors for the first time, then it just gets even better.

The New York Times headlined “this is peak humanity” while CNN just said “wow, wow, wow.”

Or as Bono said “First we played clubs, then we played the biggest stadia, and now we play cathedrals.”

Ever since the colossal satellite screens of Zoo TV first crash landed into our consciousness in the early 90s, U2 have consistently pushed the technological envelope to the very edge whether that be by erecting huge LED screens, giant lemons, and more.

Now, they’ve made the much hyped Las Vegas Sphere – a $2.3bn, 18,000 seater sci-fi structure which boasts 160,000 speakers and a 54,000 m²  wraparound LED screen you’ve ever seen in your life – their new home for the next few months.

Designed by Populous (the global architectural and design practice specialising in sports facilities, arenas and convention centres), the Sphere project started development in 2018, was disrupted by Covid, but finally opened today.

U2 will perform 25 dates at the venue through to December, with the Sphere’s future to include sports events, music performances and more.

 

When Lionel Messi lifted the World Cup for Argentina, it felt like a fitting end to a glorious career.

The football star, for many the GOAT (greatest of all time), had done it all – a record seven Ballon d’Or awards as the world’s best player. He had spent almost his entire professional career with Barcelona, where he won a club record of 34 trophies, including ten La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey titles and the Champions League four times. For the last two seasons he had moved to Paris St Germain, and then finally in 2022, he captained his beloved Argentina to win the FIFA World Cup.

Since July this year, when the football player announced his move to new and underachieving  US soccer team Inter Miami, the city – and much of America too – has been gripped by the dazzling star. His flamingo pink club jersey has become ubiquitous.

Messi’s face is everywhere: on gigantic murals, billboards, public transport and television adverts. Messi wares are being hawked on street corners and in every novelty store and sports outfitter in the city. Beach bars are serving Messi Mojitos, the Hard Rock Cafe offers the Messi Chicken Sandwich and Messi Burger, and a local brewery is selling pale pink cans of GOAT 10 beer (he wears the No 10 jersey for Inter Miami, as he has for most of his career).

On the pitch, Messi, 36, has had an instant impact on the club, which plays in the Major League Soccer (MLS) league and is co-owned by David Beckham, himself once the biggest thing in US football. It took the former England captain years to mould LA Galaxy into contenders but Messi has already turned perhaps the worst team in the league into perhaps the best.

DRV PNK Stadium, the club’s temporary home in Fort Lauderdale while it scrambles to build its own, is sold out for every game and in the VIP suites the Beckhams are rubbing shoulders with the likes of  LeBron James, Serena Williams, and Puff Daddy.

Off the pitch, the Messi effect has proved even more spectacular. At the beginning of the summer, Inter Miami’s Instagram account had one million followers. It now has 15 million, not just more than any of its league rivals but more than any ice hockey, baseball or American football team and all but three US basketball teams.

Since Messi’s first game against Cruz Azul in July, where standing-room tickets started at nearly $900, average ticket prices have increased by more than 500%, from $110 to $690. That Messi effect extends across the league, at every stadium he travels to. Ticket prices for the match between Inter Miami and Los Angeles FC last Sunday set a record as the most expensive in MLS history — roughly $900 for the cheapest option. Official and knock-off Messi jerseys have been on backorder for months.

Messi has also transformed the business model of the MLS. His surprise move to the US was made possible with a unique deal. Would just offering money be enough to attract a player who ranked second in 2023 on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid athletes at $130 million?

Messi’s 2½-year deal with Inter Miami is “worth up to $150 million total from his salary, signing bonus, and equity in the team” according to the club, securing a piece of the club’s ownership on retiring. However the real commercial sweetener was the commercial rights – Messi will get a significant share of all sign-up fees for Apple TV, the MLS streaming service, and also a share of all Adidas merchandise sales, Adidas being the existing sponsor of Inter Miami, and a long-time sponsor of Messi.

Before the American move, Messi had earned around $120 million annually, which placed hime marginally behind Cristiano Ronaldo in the football world. However Messi is a far more likeable personality, and with a move to the heart of America’s Latin community, he could really exploit his popularity.

Last year, in addition to his Paris St Germain salary of $65 million, GeniusWorks analysis shows that he earned around $55 million annually from brand endorsements (Adidas, Huawei, Gatorade, MasterCard, Lay’s, Pepsi, Hawkers, Ooredoo, Gillette, Turkish Airlines). That figure, now with additional deals and income streams, will grow significantly.

The 35 year old’s net wealth of around $600 million, is also bolstered by investments in his own branded merchandise, which can be bought at The Messi Store plus a property portfolio and digital investments.

Around his birthplace of Rosario in Argentina, for example, he has put money into the Azahares del Parana project (a set of gated communities out of the city) as well as an apartment building in the city centre. Other investments include dipping his toe into the worlds of cryptocurrency and NFTs, working in partnership with Ethernity.

More

• All About Brands 
• 250 Innovative Brands
• Brand Innovation by Peter Fisk
• Building Brands like Pixar make Movies by Peter Fisk
• The Brand World Cup 2022 by Peter Fisk

Bagsværd is a 25 minute drive northwards from Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport.

When you arrive, there is nothing but Novo Nordisk. A sprawling campus of the Danish pharmaceutical giant that has grown rapidly over the years as a world leader in diabetes care.

Novo Nordisk was founded in 1923. Novo’s origins can be traced back to the collaboration of two Danish pharmacists, August Krogh and August Kongsted, who established Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium (Nordic Insulin Laboratory). Over the last century Novo has become primarily known for its work in the field of diabetes treatments. It develops and manufactures a wide range of diabetes medications, including insulin, as well as devices such as insulin pens and pumps.

This week Novo Nordisk’s miracle weight-loss drug Wegovy gained approval for use in the UK: for private patients and, on the NHS, for those with a BMI over 35 (or in exceptional case,  over 30).

The Danish company’s market cap has dramatically risen to $428 billion, making it the largest company in Europe, overtaking the luxury goods giant LVMH, and bigger than the rest of Denmark’s annual GDP.

All because of an accidental discovery.

In 2017 its new drug for diabetics, Ozempic, was approved. But those taking it noticed their appetites seemed to disappear and they were losing weight. Ozempic contains semaglutide, which mimics a naturally occurring hormone, GLP-1, that makes us feel full after a meal, telling the body that no more food is needed.

Ozempic has transformed Novo, and potentially the future of millions of people too.

The market for weight loss drugs is estimated at $100 billion. Celebrities like Elon Musk have given it a go. In July 12 million units of Ozempic were sold. Yet demand far exceeds supply.  Diabetes patients faced shortages because so many more people wanted to get their hands on Ozempic. An estimated 415 million people have type 2 diabetes worldwide. Over 1 billion people are obese.

Wegovy, which delivers a different dose of the same active ingredient, was created by Novo Nordisk in response to this stratospheric demand. The rapid growth has also come with concerns about side effects, particularly as the communication has spread virally, beyond the normal medical world. There are also ethical discussions about who deserves the limited supplies most.

Other pharma companies have woken up to the opportunity too.  Eli Lilly and Pfizer have their own semaglutides. But the demand is so high, supply so short, that this should not damage Novo Nordisk any time soon. Indeed this could be just the beginning for semaglutides. They are also showing promising results when it comes to treating cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and Alzheimer’s.

It sounds like a Hollywood movie, as an old and steady company suddenly discovers a wonder drug. How Novo can capitalise on the approach will be interesting.

The discovery reminds me of Viagra, another blockbuster drug, when the side-effects of another fairly routine drug development were realised to have huge applications in other areas. The brand Viagra was able to transform minds, business models, and sex lives. Of course there are few obese people in Denmark, but the small nation with a national GDP less than the market cap of Novo, is already feasting on one of its longest established companies.

Novo Nordisk also made it into TIME magazine’s most influential companies of 2023: